We deliver our models in specially designed wooden crates. We have been delivering models in these for many years with great success.

Insurance

All our models in transit are fully insured. In the unlikely event that the model is damaged in transit, The Model Shipyard must be notified immediately. Arrangements will then be made for the model to be returned to the studio in South Africa where it will be inspected and repaired. If the model cannot be repaired to its original splendour a replacement model will be built and sent to you.

Delivery

We deliver DAP (Delivered At Place duties unpaid). This means that we deliver door-to-door. We pay for the air freight, insurance, customs clearance and final delivery to your door.

Import Duties and Taxes

We export our models under a tariff heading that is usually duty free. However this is not a guarantee because it can vary from region to region. You might have to pay VAT (Value Added Tax) or GST(General Sales Tax) depending on which tax regime prevails in your region.

SHIP DESCRIPTION

About the model ship HMS Unicorn

This model ship of the HMS Unicorn was comissioned by WETA Digital New Zeeland as a birthday present for Steven Spielberg for his sixty fifth birthday.

The information that was used to design this model has been provided to us by the crew that did much of the visual effects production, including previsualisation, animation, performance capture, simulation, compositing, modeling, rendering, and research for the Tintin Movie.

From a book by the author of Tintin, Herge, they learned that he used the 50 gun french ship Le Brilliant as reference. He also studied Le Soleil Royal, La Couronne and La Royale de France and he used some pieces for specific details. They found that there were plans and a historical model of the Le Brilliant at the French Maritime Museum in Paris. They discovered that quite some time ago a French magazine published the plans of the Unicorn as derived by the comic book. They used these plans as integration for the model but they tried to stick as much as possible to the Le Brilliant because it was historically more accurate . However the Unicorn they ended up building was quite different from the plans of Le Brilliant, mainly on the gun ports, the deck heights, the channels for the shrouds and the quarter deck. The deck details and other components was build using the descriptions and specifications from the book “The 74 Gun Ship” by Jean Boudriot.